Leo Gura

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Posts posted by Leo Gura

  2. Posted

    You gotta learn street-smarts and how to assess people so you don't get shafted. If you go into serious business with a naive attitude, you'll definitely get fleeced. A lot of this is learned through trial and error, but I actually have 2 great books about exactly this topic on my book list in the Dealing With People category. They're real eye-openers! They alone are worth the price of the list, saving you thousands if not millions in the long-run if you plan to do big business throughout your life.

    I've been screwed in business once or twice and I was pretty savvy to start out with because my Dad was real good a fleecing people and I learned how the mind of a scoundrel businessman works. Make no mistake about it, big business is cut-throat and people will eat your lunch if you let them.

  4. Posted

    Those are not neuroses. They are cognitive biases which are largely hardwired into your brain. They are how the brain human brain works. Nature has made these optimizations as rules-of-thumb to make our thinking faster and simpler. There are good aspects to these optimizations and bad aspects.

    The best way to avoid them is to simply do less thinking and mental-masturbation. Which is why meditation and mindfulness practice is so great. They let you bypass all these biases more and more with practice because you stop taking your thinking so seriously.

  6. Posted

    10 hours ago, RandomPaul said:

    Hi! so I have been meaning to ask this for a while, but I was a bit afraid I might offend someone, but this is the perfect place for this question.

    I think Alan Watts was amazing and I have mad respect for him, the way he presented the world was so harmonious and decisive at the same time. However I saw that his end envolved some alcohol abuse which might have caused a heart condition. Now, I got this from the internet, don't know how true it is, but if it is, does anyone know how such an enlightenment being fell in such an egotistical vice? thank you, and peace :D 

    Enlightenment doesn't make you perfect.

    I read of a modern-era Zen master who sexually molested female students. He was over 100 years old! He would also make advances on the wives of his married male students. It got so bad that after years of this, the students finally had to convene a meeting and draft a formal letter asking him to stop. He was 108 years old and meditated since he was like 12 years old.

    100 years of meditation may not be enough to unwire the horny Japanese businessman out of the monk.

    Lol

  12. Posted

    The only way to develop social skills is to actually socialize -- with real people -- frequently for months and years on end.

    Then, on top of that, you can layer in some books, theories, tips, techniques, etc. But without that foundation, you're screwed.

    So start thinking about how to be around more people more of the time. A common vehicle for young guys to be more social is through pickup. Or college activities.

    Or perhaps you'll decide that you don't want that, and you just want to remain anti-social. That's an option too.

  17. Posted

    Emptiness is the quality of the True Self. The True Self is a field of empty, formless, awareness. This pure awareness is what you actually are.

    Meaning is an illusion created by the overactive mind. Meaning is meaningless and you don't need it. BEING > meaning. Being is true. Meaning is false, because it is actually being masquerading as something it is not. Meaning is ike the mirage of an oasis in the Sahara.

  18. Posted

    Setbacks usually cause me to re-assess my goals, cut all the fat, tighten my priorities, and get even more serious about my aims.

    The biggest setback I had was 2 years ago with my legal case in Toronto.

    I shot a video during that experience here: http://www.actualized.org/articles/staying-hungry

    I used that event to light a fire under my ass and I accomplished more in the last 2 years than possibly ever. Most of Actualized.org's success was built during this time.

  23. Posted

    @Dhana Choko Yes in that "you" can't directly cause the enlightenment to occur, but I really don't see this a being much different than say getting hired for a great job. You can't directly force someone to hire you. But you can certainly take the actions necessary to get hired, if not today, then next week.

    The practical danger with saying that there's nothing you can do, is that it makes people stop trying, expecting enlightenment to happen through some kind of blind luck. This is NOT how serious people get enlightened. Serious people undertake a serious seeking and eventually the seeking gets dropped and enlightenment dawns spontaneously. But that's not to say that serious seeking wasn't necessary. It's part of the total process.

    In general what happens is that once the person becomes enlightened he likes to say the whole journey was unnecessary, but I think that's a bit unrealistic and unhelpful to those who aren't enlightened yet. That kind of advice is good for people who have been seeking for 10 years and can't stop seeking. Then you tell them to drop the seeking because it's become an obstacle.

  25. Posted

    If you're looking for a pragmatic answer, the answer is, it's highly variable. Some people take decades, some people do it one weekend. I've met a lady who got enlightened in one weekend.

    There are so many variables: your openmindedness, the degree of your intent, the quality of guidance you get, your childhood upbringing, your genetics, and even pure blind luck!

    With quality guidance, high levels of intent, and lots of sitting, you could reasonably expect something like 2-3 years. But don't let that limit you. Whenever you actually sit down to do enlightenment, intent to become enlightened RIGHT NOW!